Superior

Chapter 52

"I'll...catch up with you later," I said, smiling ruefully.

With her mouth half open, Delaney gave me a pain-filled, desperate look, silently begging me not to stay.

"Come on," I heard Trai whisper. "For Abby."

Abby. His sister. His dead sister who had risked her life trying to stop Leary when I couldn't. The sister I had forced him to leave behind. There was unmistakable anguish in his eyes, but it was laced with solid determination.

Finally, Delaney nodded. "For Abby," she echoed dimly.

I heaved an inward sigh of relief. "Go," I urged, giving Delaney a light shove in the small of her back. Trai grabbed her hand, pulling her across the uneven gravel. She glanced back at me one last time as they reached the tunnel, her eyes filled with compassion.

And then they were gone.

○●○●○●○

When I turned back around, Miracle had righted herself and was once again wearing her signature smirk. "How chivalrous of you," she teased, pouting prettily. "Telling your friends to leave so they don't have to see you die."

Sighing, I took a step forward. "Miracle, listen to me," I said earnestly. "That, right there, is our way out. We don't have a lot of time, but I can get you out of here alive. Come with me. Please."

She was silent, and for a moment I thought I'd convinced her. But then she laughed, soft and humorless.

"Oh, Caleb," she murmured. "Sweet, sweet Caleb. Don't you understand that we can't go out there?"

"If this is about the Pro-Inferiors, I can—"

"This doesn't have anything to do with the Pro-Inferiors," Miracle snapped. "I couldn't care less about them. This is about us, and what we are."

It took me a while to understand what she meant.

"Superiors," I murmured.

She nodded, brushing her hair from her eyes. "You have to understand that we don't belong out there. With people, with humans. We're too different."

She was approaching me again, her arm extended, and I stumbled back with a thick swallow.

"You don't know that," I hissed. "You've never lived a life besides this one. Even if I don't remember it, I did. And I was Popular. I had friends who—"

"Will be horrified by how you've changed," Miracle finished, cutting me off. "You're not one of them anymore, darling. Why do you think Superiors only live in the Capitol? The real world is cold. Maybe when they see us on TV, it's okay. But our kind of perfection will not be tolerated, especially if our control of the government has been taken from us. Humans are not forgiving creatures."

"You don't know that," I repeated. She stepped forward again, and this time, I didn't move back. She wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my shirt.

"Just face it, Caleb," she murmured into my chest. "Whatever Popularity you had before means nothing now. People prefer perfection to be unattainable, because then, even if they can't achieve it, they know that nobody else can, either. Seeing Superiors face to face will show them that perfection exists. Seeing us will only remind them of what they are not. It'll just make them hate us even more."

She paused, took a deep breath. "I don't have a place out there. I never have. And you must realize this, sooner rather than later: neither do you."